A Stolen Heart

by Beverley Hollowed

  “So what happened?” Jack asked.

  “You read the letter,” she replied. “He didn’t want me anymore.”

  “How did you get the letter?” he asked.

  “He sent his friend to deliver it,” Emma explained. “And she took great pleasure in it. She didn’t like me from the first time I met her.”

  “Jesus Emma, what a mess,” he asked. “So what’s next?”

  “I am going to bed,” she replied standing up suddenly and walking to the door.

  “Emma!” he called after her. “I meant, what are you going to do about Jonathan? He thinks you are going to marry him tomorrow. You have to tell him the truth.”

  “Tomorrow,” she replied as she started up the stairs. “I will tell him everything tomorrow.”

  She got to her bedroom and flopped on her bed. She lay there for a few moments then got back up and striped her clothes off. She slid under the cover on her bed. She felt exhausted. She lay there and waited for sleep to come but it never did.

  She heard her parents arrive home from the pub. She rolled over and looked at the clock on her bedside table. It was still only 10:35pm. She could hear her mother coming up the stairs and gently tapping on her door. Emma didn’t reply. Helen quietly put her head around the door.

  “Emma pet,” she whispered. “Are you awake?”

  Again Emma didn’t reply. She kept her eyes close and pretended to be asleep. Helen quietly closed the door again and left her daughter fast asleep, or at least that’s what she thought.

  Emma could hear her mother and father talking on the landing.

  “She fast asleep,” Helen told Gerry. She must be worn out.”

  “Ah a good night’s sleep will do her good,” Gerry replied. “She has a big day ahead of her tomorrow.”

  “I think I’ll call it a night myself,” Helen replied.

  “I will be up soon,” Gerry replied. “I told Jack to put on the kettle for me. Think I will have a cuppa before I hit the sack.”

  Emma turned her face into her pillow and began to cry. Everything was such a mess. How could he have left her behind? He said he loved her and she truly loved him. Every time she calmed herself she would think of Zach and a new wave of grief would hit her.

  Sleep finally arrived about 6 o’clock the next morning.

  She was woken at nine by the sound of Louise squealing excitedly and bouncing on the end of her bed. Emma was still quite groggy and for a moment and little confused. That blissful state when, for that moment between sleep and wake, everything is good.

  “How are you still asleep?” she said excitedly. “You’re getting married today.”

  The memories of last night came screaming back to her like an express train running her down. She tried to lift her head from her pillow but couldn’t. Her head felt like it was going to split in two.

  She tried again this time a little more successful.

  “Wow you look really rough,” Louise said as Emma propped herself on her pillows.

  “God thanks Louise,” Emma replied. She glanced over at her reflection in her dressing table mirror. Louise was right. She looked like crap but it was nothing compared to how she felt.

  She flopped back on her pillow.

  “Come on sleeping beauty,” Helen said as she breezed into Emma’s room. “Are you ok sweet? You look a little rough.”

  “God has everyone suddenly become the fashion police” she snapped as she threw her blankets off her and got out of the bed. “I didn’t sleep too good, ok!”

  Without saying another word she grabbed her bathrobe and headed for the bathroom. She climbed into the shower and let the hot water try and wash her troubles away.

  When she finished her shower and dried herself off. She wrapped her bathrobe around herself and went back into her bedroom where she got dressed in a tracksuit and ran a brush through her wet hair. She didn’t bother to dry her hair and just caught it up in a hair grip.

  She went down to the kitchen where the rest of her family were all busy preparing for the day ahead. All that was except Jack, who was sitting at the table sipping a cup of coffee.

  “Heya love,” Helen said as she walked into the kitchen. “Feel a bit better after the shower?”

  “Yeah,” Emma said feeling guilty for snapping at her mother and sister. “I am sorry for snapping, I guess I didn’t sleep very well.”

  “Forget about it,” Helen said understanding her daughter’s nervous. “Want some breakfast?”

  “I am just going out for a few minutes,” Emma said. Jack gave her a knowing look. “I want to go see Jonathan for a... something.”

  “You can’t,” Helen said sounding almost panicked at the prospect of Emma going to see Jonathan. “It’s bad luck to see the groom before the wedding. Besides we have to go to the hair dressers in a few minutes.”

  Helen looked at her watch.

  “Actually we have to go now,” Helen said before she herded her two daughters out the front door to the car. Before she left she glance over her shoulder at Jack. She gave him a pleading look.

  They met Grace at the hairdressers and all four got their hairs done perfectly for the wedding. Emma looked at herself in the mirror as the hairdresser chatted casually to her. She thought about the mess she had gotten herself into. How was she going to put thing right. How could she stand in front of Jonathan and tell him she didn’t want to marry him anymore.

  She didn’t know if she could. How could she let everyone down? It was different when she could run away and hide while they all have time to calm down but how could she when she would have to face the music. And she would have to do it alone.

  Everybody else was so busy talking that nobody even noticed she hadn’t said two words. She forced a smile every time somebody spoke to her but inside she wanted to scream.

  By the time she got back to the house she was finding it harder and harder to speak up. Until in the end she decided she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t break Jonathan’s heart. He loved her.

  He loved her more than anything and was here and he wanted her. He wanted to marry her and shared the rest of their lives together.

  Although she didn’t feel the same, she did love him. He was sweet and kind and caring and he wanted her and she knew she could make it work.

  She went to her room and began to get ready. She put on her wedding dress and all her finishing touches. She sat in her room as everyone else was running around the house like crazy people.

  She walked over to her bed and slipped her hand under the pillow. She slid out the letter she had gotten from Zach. She removed it from it envelope and read it one last time. Then she placed it back into the envelope and reached up on top of her wardrobe and pulled out a small box she had with lots of other little memorabilia from her childhood. She pushed it into the bottom of the box and closed the lid on her past. She walked to the long mirror in her room and looked at herself. She looked beautiful on the outside but that’s not how she felt on the inside. She pushed all thoughts of the past three weeks to the back of her mind and took a deep breath.

  There was a soft tap on her door.

  “Come in,” she called out.

  “Hey,” Jack said as he put his head around the door. “Wow you look beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” she replied nervously

  “Emma, what the hell are you doing?” Jack asked abruptly.

  “Jack don’t start,” she said turning away from him.

  “I thought you were going to come clean to Jonathan?” Jack asked. “For God sake Emma, last night you were running away with another guy.”

  “I was going to, I really was,” she replied in a loud whisper. “But the more I thought about it, I just can’t. I am afraid to. Jonathan loves me and he wants to marry me.”

  “But Emma you don’t love him back,” he insisted. His words cut through her like a hot knife through butter.

  “I do love him,” she replied defensively.

  “Not in the way you should,” he
came back with such ferocity he surprised Emma.

  “I will learn to,” she replied.

  “I think you’re making a big mistake and I don’t know if I could stand by and watch you do that,” Jack said much to Emma’s horror.

  “Jack you can’t say anything,” she pleaded. “Promise me.”

  “Emma,” he sighed sitting down on the end of her bed. “You want me to lie, to stand in that church and pretend like nothing ever happen?”

  “Yes,” she said as their Mam walked into the room more or less ending the conversation there and then.

  “Oh Emma!” Helen gushed seeing her daughter for the first time fully dressed for her wedding. “You look so beautiful love.”

  “Thanks Mam,” Emma said kissing her Mam on the cheek. She gave Jack a pleading look.

  “Jonathan is a lucky man,” Helen said. “Isn’t he Jack?”

  “Depends on how you look at it,” Jack replied coolly, he eyed locked on Emma.

  “Jack!” Helen said giving her son a playful smack. She thought it was just usual banter that when on between her two eldest children. Emma didn’t say anything. She simply shot him a nervous look.

  An hour later she was in the car on her way to the church, her father sitting next to her.

  “You ok sweetheart?” Gerry asked as they moved along the road to the church.

  “I’m fine,” she nodded, forcing a smile.

  “It’s just you have barely said two words since we left the house,” he said.

  “I’m fine,” she assured him and smiled. “I guess I am just a little nervous.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Gerry said and squeezed her hand. “Jonathan is the right man for you, he will make you happy.”

  Emma found his choice of words strange but somehow reassuring.

  “Thanks Dad,” she said as she leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  When they reached the church, she stood at the back for a moment and waited for the music to start. She caught a glimpse of Jonathan standing nervously at the front of the church. He looked so handsome in his suit. She knew she was doing the right thing. Then she saw Jack sitting on the far side of the aisle next to their mother. He looked over his shoulder and caught her eye. He just stared blankly at her and something about the way he looked made Emma feel very nervous.

  “Are you ready Emma?” Gerry said startling her from her thoughts.

  “Yes,” she replied with a smile.

  As the music started, she walked down the aisle and stood next to Jonathan. She looked at him and he smiled reassuringly at her. She was doing the right thing. Wasn’t she?

  Chapter 24

  Emma never left Mia’s side all that day. Every time the nurses came and checked on her, Emma’s heart would sink when they would say there was still no change.

  The doctor came by every hour to check on her. They would offer words of reassurance but Emma knew there was no more they could do for Mia that they hadn’t already tried.

  Her parents stayed with her for the rest of the day. Emma called home several to check on Lily. Jenna and Jack where looking after her. Emma knew by the tone of Jenna’s voice, she was really enjoying being with Jack. Emma was glad her friend and her brother seemed to be getting along. She was glad someone was happy. She wished she was too.

  After Zach had walked out that morning, Emma told her parents she really didn’t want to talk about what had happened.

  Of course her Dad tried to push it, but her Mam said that when she was ready to talk they would be there for her. She was very quiet all day and about seven Helen suggested that Gerry should go home and give Jack and Jenna a break from having to baby sit Lily.

  Emma told her that she should go to but she insisted on staying for another while longer. Gerry said he would send Jack to come and get her when he got home.

  When he left, the two women sat in silence for a while. Emma sat close to the bed. She gently stroked Mia’s hair, studying every little part of her daughter little face. Watching as the machine assisted her breathing, listening to her breathing and praying for a miracle.

  “You must think I am such a terrible person,” Emma said to her mother finally, all the time watching Mia. “I am sorry I disappointed you.”

  “You have never disappointed me Emma,” Helen said pulling closer to her daughter. She placed her hand on her daughters arm. “Far from it. The truth is I am very proud of you, it took a lot of guts to admit what you did today.”

  “You really think so?” Emma replied. “I always believed I was a coward.”

  “Emma,” Helen said speaking in her usual soft calming voice. “You did what you had to do. But today you did something I don’t know I would have had the courage to do. If he is her father he had the right to be here. And you knew that and despite what others thought, you did what you thought was right. And it was the right thing.”

  “Thanks Mam,” Emma said as she kissed her mother’s cheek. She was grateful for her support.

  “Did you love him?” Helen asked awhile later.

  “I did once,” Emma replied softly then after some thought added. “I guess if I am honest I still do. But he didn’t feel the same. Now he is marrying someone else. And I don’t want to get in the way of that but I had to tell him about Mia.”

  “Where did you meet him?” Helen asked.

  “We met in O’Grady’s,” Emma explained. “About three weeks before the wedding. It all happened so quickly. I guess he swept me of my feet. I fell in love with him so completely. It was crazy really. We were going to run away together. We were going to go the night before the wedding. But he never showed up. I was going to tell Jonathan everything but in the end I couldn’t. I guess I took the coward’s way out. But I don’t regret marrying Jonathan. He was a good man and we had a good marriage. We were happy.”

  “So what’s going to happen now?” Helen asked.

  “He doesn’t want to know,” she said sadly, feeling her heart breaking once again. She tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back the tears. “He didn’t want me then and I guess he doesn’t want either of us now.”

  “Well then, the man is a fool,” Helen said giving her daughter a hug.

  “Why does God hate me so much?” Emma asked as the tears began to fall once again.

  “God doesn’t hate you Emma,” Helen replied with a loving little giggle.

  “Sometimes I think God is like a mean little kid who hates to see people truly happy,” Emma told her mother. “You know like the kids that use magnifying glass to burn insects on the pavement. And every so often he turns his magnifying glass on someone and their life burst in to flames and all that left is some smouldering ashes where their life once was.”

  “Don’t give up on God sweetheart,” Helen told her daughter. “You have to remember that same God gave you those two little girls and he is going to get you through this too.”

  “I hope so Mam” Emma said looking at her little girl lying in the bed. “I truly hope so.”

  Helen left a little after nine. She told Emma she would be back early in the morning and gave her and Mia a kiss goodnight before they left.

  Emma switched off the main light in the room, leaving the lamp at the back of Mia’s bed to light up the room.

  She sat and flick through the magazines her mother had brought her in. She must have read the same page about twenty times but not one word sunk in.

  She mostly sat and watched Mia. She watched as her chest raised and fell in time with the pumps and the machines. She watched until she slowly drifted to sleep herself.

  “Mommy,” she heard Mia’s voice call. “Wake up Mommy.” Emma opened her eyes and saw Mia bouncing on her bed. Behind her stood Jonathan holding her breakfast on a tray, complete with a long stemmed rose in his mouth and a smile on his face.

  He placed the tray on the bed beside Emma, removed the flower from his mouth, bending down and giving her a kiss.

  “Happy Anniversary Mrs. Daniels,” he said as he slipped a long box
on to the tray in front.

  Emma opened the box and was amazed by a beautiful diamond bracelet.

  “Oh Jonathan,” Emma said stunned by the beauty of her gift. “This is beautiful.”

  “But not as beautiful as you,” Jonathan said kissing her again. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.” she replied. And she meant it she really did love him.

  “Do you love me too Mommy?” Mia asked still bouncing on the end of her bed.

  “Of course I love you too Mia,” Emma said. She pulled her closer to her and hugged her tightly. She loved her so much. She had made her life complete. She was the light of her life. Her Mia

  “Mia!” she shouted sitting up stair in her chair. She was dazed for a moment and was a little unsure where she was. Then as her memory came rushing back she was startled by a voice coming from across the bed.

  “She is ok,” the voice reassured her. She looked up and saw Zach sitting on the far side of the bed.

  “Zach,” Emma surprised to see him sitting there. She quickly sat up in her chair and straightened herself up. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Well I have been here about an hour,” he replied. “You were out cold when I got here.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” she asked.

  “You look so peaceful,” he said. “Besides she hasn’t moved since I got here, if she had I promise I would have woken you.”

  “Is there no change at all?” she asked.

  “Her temperature has come down a little,” he replied. “But she is not out of the woods yet.”

  “But the temperature coming down is a good thing?” she asked hopefully.

  “Yes,” he said giving her a reassuring smile. ”It’s a good sign.”

  They sat together for a while in silence. Emma occasionally glanced over at Zach. But he never once looked back. She knew he was angry and she knew he was hurt. But surely he understood he had left her with no other choice. She had no idea where he was. He had left her. But now wasn’t the time for who was to blame they needed to pull together for Mia’s sake.